


Fault Lines

by watcherofworlds



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Episode: s01e23 Sacrifice, F/M, Grief/Mourning, off screen major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 04:06:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19099417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watcherofworlds/pseuds/watcherofworlds
Summary: The Undertaking does more than open up fault lines in the earth- when it brings about Tommy Merlyn's death, it also opens up fault lines in Oliver's soul, shaking him to his very core. Felicity tries desperately to bring him back from the brink, but fears it may be impossible.





	Fault Lines

**Author's Note:**

> I had this mental image of Felicity wiping the green greasepaint from around Oliver's eyes, and this is what came out of it. Hope you enjoy!

Oliver returned to the Foundry alone, with the dust of collapsed buildings in his hair and across the top of his shoulders, grief bending his posture, and exhaustion dragging his heels. 

“Oliver,” Felicity said from her chair, where she’d taken refuge, not daring to even try moving while everything was still shaking. His gaze drifted in her direction, but otherwise he didn’t respond or react to her presence at all. Silence reigned in the Foundry, heavy and oppressive.

Felicity didn’t have to ask what had happened out there to put Oliver in his current zombie like state. She didn’t have to ask, because she knew, and she promised herself that no one would ever know that Oliver’s comm had still been on when he’d found Tommy in the wreckage of CNRI, that she’d heard him beg him to open his eyes and whisper “It should have been me” in a desperate, broken voice.

“Oliver,” Felicity said again, moving toward him with slow, careful steps, afraid of what, in his current emotional state, he might do if he were startled. This time, he didn’t even turn his gaze in her direction. As she approached, he opened his hand, letting his bow fall from nerveless fingers. Felicity flinched at the clattering sound it made against the concrete floor. A moment later, his quiver followed his bow, the arrows inside it getting knocked loose by its impact with the ground and ending up scattered across the floor. That, more than anything, was an indicator of what bad shape Oliver was in- he would never handle his gear with so little care under normal circumstances.

“Here,” Felicity said, laying a hand on Oliver’s shoulder and watching him barely react. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” He moved slowly and stiffly, like someone in the midst of a dream, but with his help she eventually managed to get him out of his dirty, dust covered jacket and hood, taking the time to clean and bandage the wound on his shoulder before helping him into a clean sweatshirt.

Then there was the problem of the green greasepaint around his eyes. It was streaked through with tear tracks in spots, but otherwise remained stubbornly in place. Felicity glanced around, but didn’t see whatever Oliver normally used to get it off. She wouldn’t have known what to look for anyway- whatever process or ritual Oliver went through to transform himself from the Hood back into Oliver Queen was private, a part of his crusade she wasn’t privy to.

At a loss, Felicity stood and studied Oliver for a moment, chewing worriedly on her bottom lip. It was then that she saw that he was crying, soundlessly, which was why she hadn’t noticed until now. Without thinking, she reached out and brushed his tears away, trying to offer him comfort in whatever little ways she could. Her fingertips came away green, and there were streaks in the greasepaint around his eyes that made it look like a child had been using it for fingerpainting.

_ Well, there we go _ , Felicity thought distractedly. Stepping even closer to Oliver, she started to carefully wipe away what remained of the greasepaint.

“Felicity…” Oliver murmured. It was the first he’d spoken since returning to the Foundry. Felicity paused in her work, but he didn’t say anything else, and he made no move to stop what she was doing, for which she was privately grateful. The air between them was fraught with tension, with Felicity’s worry that at any second she might overstep. She would never have dared touch Oliver this way in any other situation- and indeed, she remembered the only other time she’d ever tried, after Dig and Oliver had returned from the show they’d put on to try and get Moira to tell them about the Undertaking, remembered how at the sight of Oliver’s injuries, concern had overridden her good sense and she’d reached out to touch his face only to have him duck away from her hand. She suspected that the only reason why that didn’t happen now, why the boundaries that normally lay between them didn’t exist in this moment, was because Oliver simply didn’t have the energy or the strength to put his walls back up. 

Her task done, Felicity stepped back to examine her handiwork. Without the greasepaint around his eyes, it became even more apparent just how much Oliver was struggling- gaunt and empty eyed, he looked like nothing so much as a hollow- a body without a soul, the empty husk of what had once been a person. Unable to bear the sight of him like that, Felicity looked around the Foundry, surveying the damage. The lair itself had escaped destruction by virtue of its being underground, but large pieces of the ceiling had fallen in, shattering upon impact with the ground and leaving chunks of concrete scattered all over. The tables had been broken, the computers smashed to pieces, and it had been lucky that Felicity hadn’t been crushed herself, since the piece of ceiling that had landed on them had fallen right in front of her. It was a miracle that the crate where Oliver kept his gear had survived, and that Felicity had even been able to find first aid supplies and a clean sweatshirt for Oliver among all of the wreckage. The Foundry would have to be rebuilt eventually, but for now Felicity was just grateful that it hadn’t been worse.

“Felicity,” Oliver said softly, drawing her attention back to him. She forced herself not to think about the fact that the only two times he had spoken since returning here, it had been to say her name.

“It wasn’t your fault, Oliver,” she said, seeing where his thoughts were going the moment her eyes met his. “What happened to Tommy… it wasn’t your fault.” Oliver just shook his head. 

“It should have been me,” was all he would say, the same thing he had said in the moment after Tommy’s death. “It should have been me.”


End file.
